


Her Majesty's Doctor

by hopeless_eccentric



Category: The Penumbra Podcast
Genre: Alternate Universe - Fantasy, Alternate Universe - Royalty, Banter, Doctor Vespa Ilkay, F/F, Fluff, Getting Together, Hurt/Comfort, Junoverse | Juno Steel Universe, Mutual Pining, Queen Buddy Aurinko, Requited Love, but more of that vaguely medieval fantasy not a lot of dragons sorry, with minimal hurt because theyve suffered enough
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-30
Updated: 2020-12-30
Packaged: 2021-03-10 18:16:10
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,493
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28421565
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/hopeless_eccentric/pseuds/hopeless_eccentric
Summary: Regardless of the season, those streaks of honeyed light, laid across the cold stone hall in the gentle stripes of a worker bee, were vignettes of summer, each preserved like a flower pressed into a love letter. Buddy’s hair would toss in the gentle breeze like fire and her sword’s glint would bear its teeth and even if she tried something a little too flashy and lost the fight against her tutor, she would receive her reprimanding with a held-back grin.Every time, Vespa’s mentor would call for her again, and every time, Vespa would peel herself from the window feeling a little too enthusiastic about a set of chores that should have been drudgery.OR i just love the dynamic of a queen and her long suffering doctor so have that
Relationships: Buddy Aurinko/Vespa Ilkay
Comments: 18
Kudos: 30





	Her Majesty's Doctor

**Author's Note:**

> there are lots of pretty words in this one im so excited
> 
> Content warnings for mentioned sword fights, minor injuries, stitches mention, war mention

Vespa’s inner doctor told her the young queen-to-be was rash and reckless and a little too confident for her own good. When her mentor finally retired and she went from an assistant medic to the royal family’s personal surgeon, she knew for a fact that the majority of her job would be spent patching up what injuries were sustained before the young royal learned to don the armor of wisdom.

If she were sensible, she would’ve listened to her inner doctor. The princess had a lot of nerve flinging herself into duels and obstacle courses and fights with various diplomats and dignitaries while the medical staff picked up the pieces and sewed them back together. However, the only thing Vespa could manage to be remotely angry about was that she also had the nerve to look beautiful through all of it. 

Vespa wasn’t the kind of woman who liked to make excuses for anybody. It didn’t matter how attractive someone was if they fell headfirst into injuries every other day. Stupid was stupid, no matter how pretty the packaging.

However, not every patient would regale their doctor with wide-eyed stories of the adventure that their injury had cut short, nor would they all but glow with the radiance of their unbreakable smile. Vespa had become all too adept at learning how to quietly listen when the doctor would not, memorizing exactly how to grind herbs far past their needed point just outside of her mentor’s line of vision. 

Vespa hadn’t ever been one of those people who believed the royal line to be blessed with divinity. There didn’t seem to be anything too special about the king, even if his clothes were a little more expensive than everybody else’s and he wore a dumb hat. 

However, Buddy wore an accidental kind of poise that seemed more fit for a goddess than a woman. Even when Vespa barely caught sight of her dueling lessons outside of the towering glass windows in the halls of the medical wing, Buddy’s growl of competitive exultance sat upon her lips with more grace than the crown upon her father’s head. 

“Ilkay,” her mentor would often call from up the corridor, a pleasant, if not exasperated look upon her face. 

Vespa would hold her supplies a little closer to her chest and nod, though it would always take a few too many seconds to pull herself away from the window. Sometimes, Buddy would catch her eye beyond the glass and offer up one of those once in a lifetime smiles that made Vespa’s head spin and her chest go warm and fuzzy.

Regardless of the season, those streaks of honeyed light, laid across the cold stone hall in the gentle stripes of a worker bee, were vignettes of summer, each preserved like a flower pressed into a love letter. Buddy’s hair would toss in the gentle breeze like fire and her sword’s glint would bear its teeth and even if she tried something a little too flashy and lost the fight, she would receive her reprimanding with a held-back grin. 

Every time, Vespa’s mentor would call for her again, and every time, Vespa would peel herself from the window feeling a little too enthusiastic about a set of chores that should have been drudgery.

The king stepped down shortly before the king’s doctor did. It seemed that as much patience as Vespa had for the young queen, that attitude had not been shared by her mentor. 

Vespa had expected to inherit the burden of a lifetime when inheriting the medical treatment of a queen. However, the streak of red light that had been the young woman who grew up both beside and million miles away from her didn’t seem to dull under her crown as much as it shifted. 

That winning smile, once reserved for her fencing instructor and occasionally Vespa was repurposed on foreign royals offering up hoards of gold and land and hands in marriage in exchange for alliance with a woman who seemed to be the dragon upon the country’s flag cast in human form. Her practice with weaponry was a little more frequent, but a little less devil may care, and seldom did Vespa see her at all when making her rounds through the corridors. 

Vespa tried to pretend her interest in politics wasn’t new just so she wouldn’t need to explain why a lowly doctor would feel such resignation at the thought of a royal wedding. Luckily for her, Buddy too seemed allergic to the subject. 

For someone who had spent her youth acquiring injuries the way most young queens would acquire suitors, Vespa had to say she was impressed by what she learned of her foreign policy. Apparently, Buddy hated war as much as she hated dealing with swarms of diplomats. Whether her avoidance of diplomats stemmed from hatred of war or her avoidance of war stemmed from hatred of diplomats, however, Vespa could not tell. 

Nothing could be avoided forever, of course. When Buddy’s armies went to war, their queen went with them. Her doctor had no choice but to follow. 

When the queen tasted her first injury as the nation’s ruler, Vespa had all but expected the same woman whose medicine she had ground up years ago to march into her tent and boldly regale her with the half-laughed tale of the wound’s origin. Instead, Buddy was all but dragged into the medical tent by two pages she kept attempting to bat off of her, drenched in rain and lit only by flashes of lightning, rending their death-white teeth through the overcast night sky.

“Madame Ilkay, the queen has received a minor injury to—”

“Dammit, I said to let me walk on my own,” Buddy finally snapped. When the pages didn’t move, she huffed. “That was an order. If the queen falls, let it be her own fault.”

The pages stepped back with hands still raised. Buddy, pointedly, did not so much as stagger. 

“Leave us,” she added with a curt nod that turned to a deflating sigh once she and Vespa were left alone.

“Your majesty,” Vespa started as she rose from the medical cot on which she had been sitting, arms extended to help the queen.

“Oh, not you too,” Buddy sighed.

“Geez, sorry I got in the way of your grand royal plan to march straight into harm’s way,” Vespa grumbled, though she moved aside without much more fanfare. Darkness sat in the air like an inkstain, and she needed far more candles lit than she had if she wanted to properly see this injury.

“Hardly a way to speak to your sovereign,” Buddy mused, though when she turned to sit, Vespa could see she was fixing her with a smile.

It wasn’t the bold, fiery red smile of her youth, nor was it the pleasant look that passed over diplomats when she was doing her best to pretend to consider their offers. The expression didn’t belong on the face of a goddess or a warrior or a queen. It didn’t burn like the sun, but rather, flickered like the newborn flame Vespa sheltered in her hand as she made her way back over to the medical cot.

A part of her felt strange for having seen such an expression at all, but there wasn’t enough light to discern whether or not it was borne from blood loss. Vespa decided not to take it as a personal compliment until she knew the queen was well.

“Yeah, well I’m your doctor,” Vespa huffed upon sitting at Buddy’s side. “You have to be nice to me. Statistically, I’m the most likely member of your court to poison you.”

“I’m utterly terrified,” Buddy returned flatly.

“That was a joke, by the way,” Vespa added quickly.

“I know it was, darling,” Buddy chuckled. “And a very funny one at that. If the jester could sew up my injuries half as well as you could, perhaps I might have the two of you trade professions.”

“I’m a multi-talented lady,” Vespa snorted. “Now hold still while I take a look at this.”

Buddy, it seemed, hadn’t changed much of her appearance at all before coming to Vespa’s tent. She still wore a standard officer’s armor, seeing no need to don herself with gilding when gilding would do nothing to block a blade. Her hair was still tied into a frizzy bun at the base of her head, flattened by a helmet that sat beneath her hands where they lay folded in her lap. The only thing about her that spoke of royalty was her poise, woven easily between the pensive expression of her face and the unwavering straightness of her spine.

“You know, you can relax if you want,” Vespa offered softly, though her words were blurred with distraction as she squinted at the minor gash along Buddy’s arm.

“There’s a war going on, darling,” Buddy sighed. “I don’t believe I’m allowed to do such a thing.”

Vespa shrugged as she began to unbuckle Buddy’s shifted arm plate. 

“You’re the queen. You can do whatever the hell you want.”

That seemed to break Buddy’s poise enough that she laughed, sweet and soft and just untidy enough that something warm sparked in Vespa’s chest. For just a moment, she was all but convinced one of the candles had sparked onto her breast, though upon a glance down at the light where it sat on the nearby table, Vespa realized no external pang could be so sweet.

“So, I suppose I must ask what the damage is,” Buddy pressed, though it sounded more as if she were conceding once the laugh faded away. “My comrades were acting as if it were quite the blow, and though I haven’t looked, I must say it didn’t feel terrible. That is, if I’m remembering my research, either very bad or very good.”

“I’d say pretty good. I don’t think you’ll need stitches,” Vespa considered. “Say, what kind of research were you doing?”

For the first time all evening, it seemed Buddy was at a loss for words. Vespa held back her damp cloth a moment, just in case the response had been one borne from pain. However, the dumbfounded knitting of her brow melted into a smile with all the ease of a drop of candle wax sliding down the side of their nearby light.

“I just wanted to know how to talk to you, if I were to need your medical assistance,” Buddy admitted with all the poise she could muster.

“And why were you so worried about that? If you don’t know how to talk to me, you can just tell me to shut up and you won’t ever have to deal with me again,” Vespa returned, pausing when she pressed the cloth to the cut to clean it. “Is that okay?”

“That’s perfect, Miss Ilkay.”

“Vespa,” she cut her off. “Just call me Vespa.”

“Vespa,” Buddy considered. The word bloomed on her lips, flickering into an amber stained smile in the faint candlelight. “Well, Vespa, I just find the age-old tradition of monarchs treating their staff as subhuman a bit dull, that’s all.”

“You’ve always been a talkative patient,” Vespa snorted, finding herself able to produce a shaky smile once the rag started coming away from Buddy’s arm without the slightest hint of blood.

“Well, you always seemed to enjoy it,” Buddy returned lightly. “Even if your mentor found me tiresome, I always made a point of telling my stories anyway. It doesn’t take the Captain of the Guard to know you found them interesting.”

“I—” Vespa started to protest, trying and failing to list names of medicinal herbs in her head to ground herself while Buddy’s laugh filled the tent and sent her head spinning. “Really?”

“You once ran into a pillar because you were watching me duel, Vespa,” Buddy chuckled.

Fortunately, the easy work of applying a salve and some bandages was enough to distract Vespa into keeping her feet on the ground and her head on her shoulders. Unfortunately, she needed to place Buddy’s arm on her lap to apply the medication, meaning that she found herself caught in limbo between the grounding technical work and the floating sensation that sparked through her whenever their hands brushed.

“You didn’t—like—lose a bunch of blood or anything, did you?”

Buddy fixed her with that soft smile once more and the total number of blessed things in the world increased by one.

“I’m afraid that I’ve wasted years of my life without ever having had a spare moment to speak with you, Vespa,” Buddy returned. “It is not blood loss that has loosened my tongue, but rather, perspective.”

“Oh.”

“I’ve spent years admiring you from afar,” Buddy began. “I always tried to pressure my tutors into teaching me about medicine so we might have something to talk about someday, but I’m afraid that day never came.”

“Why are you telling me this? I mean—I mean, it’s kinda clear that I always—well, you know—I liked you a lot ever since I started my apprenticeship, but God,” Vespa breathed. “I’m just your doctor, and you don’t even get hurt that much. Why the hell would you ever wanna spend time with me?”

Buddy smiled at that, though it seemed she had no answer.

“The court has always been filled with the beautiful and the talented and the wealthy,” she mused. “So I might ask you the same thing. Why would you ever wish for my company when you could so easily be in the company of anyone else in the castle?”

Vespa swallowed.

“I mean, you get why that’s kind of a hard question, right? You’re—you know. The queen. There’s only one of you.”

“And to your point, there’s only one royal doctor,” Buddy grinned.

“Anybody can be a royal doctor if they learn all the right stuff. Hell, if you always take this long over a little scratch, I think I might need to get another one,” Vespa snorted.

“I didn’t want to come here and trouble you, but I’m afraid my advisors find the gruesome realities of their decisions abhorrent,” Buddy mused.

“Yeah, well, I don’t think you’ll have to worry about that for too much longer,” Vespa sighed, trying her best not to sound too disappointed. “Can you shake your arm for me and make sure the bandages aren’t gonna come loose?”

Buddy raised her arm and turned it, slowly at first, then with a carefree wiggle Vespa wouldn’t have ever expected to see coming from a royal. She tried her best to suppress a smile behind her professionalism, but it seemed the presence of Buddy Aurinko, burning warmer and brighter than any of the candles and more importantly, sitting mere inches away, was far stronger than the urge to keep up a professional appearance.

“Looks good,” Vespa confirmed.

Buddy sighed, and for a moment, her shoulders sagged by just an inch.

As much as she glowed in the red velvet and thick white fur of her royal cape, looking like a marble statue with her steady eye and set jaw, Vespa had to admit she almost liked this new, human side to Buddy Aurinko better. 

Her gaze was softer and her hands fiddled with the plates in her helmet when she found herself lost in thought. Even with one side of her face cast in gentle candlelight, the other half remained in darkness. A smear of mud brushed one of her cheeks in a careful line that might have mapped the path of a lover’s thumb, while her hair was nearly undone from the former weight of her helmet.

Vespa could have spent hours examining Buddy and she still wouldn’t have expected what came from her lips next.

“Might I stay with you for a short while, Vespa?”

Vespa raised an eyebrow.

“Don’t you have—y’know, planning and stuff?”

Buddy shook her head.

“Less than you would believe,” she returned. “My staff will know where to find me. I was hoping to have a proper word with you, circumstances willing.”

“I don’t have any other patients for today,” Vespa replied with a nod, trying and failing to hide a quaver of excitement in her voice.

“When this all comes to an end, which, according to my men on the inside, will be quite soon,” Buddy began, leaning a little closer to aid her jokingly conspiratorial tone that did nothing to help Vespa hide just how nervous sitting on the same cot as Buddy Aurinko made her. “I was wondering if we might both find some time to get to know one another. I’ve never seen the herbal gardens. Perhaps you might show them to me some time.”

Vespa tried to swallow, but it seemed her mouth had fallen open.

“I’m just your doctor, Bud,” she shook her head.

“Bud,” Buddy considered. “I quite like that, but do go on.”

“What are people gonna think? I mean, people like you don’t usually show any kind of interest in people like me,” she protested halfheartedly. “I thought there was a law or something that said you had to marry another royal from somewhere.”

“Perhaps,” Buddy shrugged. “You seem to be forgetting that I’m the queen, darling.”

“That’s my point,” Vespa sighed. “You’re the queen, and that means—”

“That I can write it out of law with a word,” Buddy chuckled. “Now the question is if you would want to show me those gardens.”

“I—” Vespa began, letting the word hang in the air while she waited for her protests to die on her lips, one by one. When there was only one sentiment left, as soft and sweet and terrified as Hope left behind at the bottom of Pandora’s box, she continued. “I think that would be really nice.”

Buddy reached over with her bandaged arm and took Vespa’s hand. Vespa felt her breath catch in her throat when she squeezed it.

“That sounds perfect, darling,” Buddy beamed. “I’m afraid I have to see to my duties soon. As much as I wish to occupy my time with hours and hours of you, I have a sneaking suspicion that my doctor would likely not want to see me injured that often.”

Vespa squeezed her hand one last time when Buddy stood, letting her thumb linger upon the line between her warm skin and the wrappings Vespa had applied.

“Try not to need to see me too much, okay?” Vespa chuckled. “But if you wanna see me, hell, I’m not stopping you. I couldn’t if I wanted to. Queen and all that.”

“There is no royal decree I could say that would encroach upon one of your boundaries, Vespa. I assure you of that,” Buddy stood, all too happy to let her hand linger in Vespa’s. “I suppose, once all of this is over, I’ll see you at that garden.”

“See you at the garden, Bud,” Vespa affirmed with a shaky smile.

Even as Buddy trailed away to right her helmet upon her head once more, she did not trail so far that Vespa missed the way her lips mouthed ‘Bud’ with all the tenderness they had applied to Vespa’s own name, as if she were trying a ring on various fingers to see how well it fit. When her lips repurposed themselves into a smile, Vespa was fairly sure the fit had been a snug one.

“Until we meet again, my lady,” Buddy nodded her farewell once she reached the mouth of the tent, a grin clearly blurring her words.

“Later, your majesty,” Vespa snorted.

With a smile at Vespa’s mockery of a salute, Buddy walked out of the tent. As the flap shuddered in the wind, Vespa couldn’t help but feel like the storm had lightened somehow. It seemed where the rain had snarled mere minutes before, it was now laughing instead.

Vespa let out a deep breath when she toppled back onto the cot, visions of her queen and castle and herb garden filling her head. For just a moment, even in the thick rain and mud and misery of war, she seemed to be able to snare a piece of springtime in her fist and hold it close to her chest.

When those visions became a reality, they were both a little older and a little more tired and a little too aware of the fragility of life. They had lived enough to know better than to pretend they didn’t want to hold one another’s hands, only parting so Vespa could busy them in the soil and show Buddy just how to tend to those plants she confessed to being her favorites.

Those days would prove to be as sweet and potent as bottled summer, even if they wouldn’t come for some while. For the time being, Vespa thought about the way Buddy Aurinko had smiled at her and gave up on stifling her own dumbstruck grin.

**Author's Note:**

> mAN where royal gf. where. 
> 
> Thank you all so much for reading!! Make sure to SMASH that kudos button and leave a comment down below or ill HUG YOU BWAHAHAHA
> 
> Check me out on tumblr @hopeless-eccentric or on twitter @withane22 !!


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